An Orc in a Blizzard
by Miri1984
Summary: Urzul Gra-Jal is the Dragon Born and has a job to do. It makes her angry, but then, so do most things. Cover Art by Blinkingkills
1. Jobs

Marcurio saw them arrive, the taciturn Human and the frankly, terrifying Orc, both boasting weapons on their backs that would easily crush him under their weight, the woman in armour that _appeared _to be made out of bone. There was no way _that _could be sanitary.

Blood was seeping through crude bandages wrapped around her right arm, and swore at the man when he moved to touch it. There were heated words, then the man rolled his eyes and ordered a room from Talen-Jei. The Orc woman stomped up the stairs ahead of the man, and he felt rather than saw her faltering attempt at healing magic and winced.

Some Orcs were good at it. But not many, in his experience.

It wasn't his business. Unless she had the coin to hire him. By the look of the big hairy man accompanying her, however, she probably had enough help as it was.

He busied himself with an ale for a while, jingling the few remaining coins in his pockets. He needed a job. He _really _needed a job. There was no way he was crawling his arse back to Winterhold to beg for charity and a place to sleep again. They'd make him give lessons. Or worse, they'd make him _take _lessons. He didn't _need _lessons any more.

Talen-Jei gave him a knowing look and he bit his lip. There was always the thieves guild, if Brynjolf would ever get around to forgiving him for that thing with the ice, but although there were a lot of things he was quite comfortable doing to survive, the guild skirted the edge of things that he wasn't quite ready to sink to…

A hand on his shoulder distracted him from his musings.

"The Argonian says you're a mage," the voice was deep and gravelly and spoke to something primal in Marcurio's nervous system. He swallowed and turned to see the Orc's enormous companion frowning at him with bushy eyebrows drawn tight in a frown.

"I am. Best in Riften, I'll have you know!"

"Do you know restoration?"

"Naturally, although my specialty is more on the offensive… if you know what I mean."

"Restoration is all we need." His arm was suddenly captured in a vice like grip and he felt himself being steered towards the stairs.

"Hey, hey, hang on! What about my fee…?"

"You'll be paid."

The Orc woman was sitting on the bed in the middle of the room, stripped down to a short sleeved tunic and fur leggings. He wasn't an expert on Orc health, but her skin seemed dull and darker around her eyes where it wasn't covered with purple tattoos.

She was no less terrifying up close than she had been in the bar.

Why were Orcs so _tall_?

Her right arm had what appeared to be some kind of teeth mark in it. Marcurio had treated enough wounds from bears to recognise that. He'd even been bitten by a bear himself once. Stupid things blundered around Skyrim as though it belonged to them.

This one looked worse than the one he'd got though. "Bear got you, did it?" he said cheerfully, pushing up his sleeves.

The Orc looked up at him with clear, colourless eyes. "No," she said shortly.

"Dragon, actually," the other man said, leaning against the doorframe.

Marcurio swallowed. "Dragon eh? Well, I'd heard they'd started coming back. Best to stay indoors no? Away from that sort of thing."

"Difficult, in our position."

"You're soldiers then?" he held out a hesitant hand and waited for the Orc to nod slightly before starting to examine the wound more closely.

"Companions," the man said, then nodded towards the Orc woman. "She's our new Harbinger."

Marcurio raised an eyebrow, then looked back at the woman. News didn't get to Riften from Whiterun that often, especially at the moment, and he hadn't heard that the old Harbinger had died - or retired, or whatever it was they did. "Do you have a name?"

"Urzul," she said wearily. "Urzul Gra-Jal."

"Are you from one of the strongholds?"

"No."

"I'm Marcurio," he said, trying his most charming smile. It never hurt to put the customer at their ease - sometimes it was even worth a tip.

She sighed.

"Can you heal my arm or have we wasted our time?"

He rolled his eyes. "Of _course _I can." He called forth magic and watched as the skin and bone knitted itself back together. She must have been in considerable pain, he realised, but then Orcs were renowned for being tough. When he was done he stepped back and admired his handywork. The skin was smooth and dark green, no trace of a scar, and he didn't think he was imagining the easing of tension around her strange eyes and the return of some sort of healthy flush to her cheek.

"Better than new," he said, satisfied, then looked at the man again, waiting.

"Farkas, pay him," Gra-Jal said, turning to the bed where her ridiculous armour was resting. He eyed the armour again and blinked a few times. Very few things had bones that big. Mammoths. Sabre cats if you killed a lot of them.

Or dragons.

He didn't have time to follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion before the big man was shoving him out the door and pushing coins into his hands. It was enough to keep him going for a while, but not as much as he had been planning to charge and he opened his mouth to argue.

Farkas - if that was his name, _growled _at him and Marcurio felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

"Right. Ah… thank you, Companion," he said.

"You're welcome," Farkas rumbled.

Marcurio shook his head as he watched the man retreat back into the room. Some people had no courtesy, no appreciation for true _skill. _He jingled the coins in his hand then put them in his coin purse and made his way back to his room. Maybe some of the guild needed healing - he could do _that _without risking trouble with the guard, and they usually paid well.

The Orc and her Companion left the next day. He couldn't say he was too upset.


	2. Dragon Born

He saw them again a few weeks later. The Bee and Barb was buzzing with people - someone said there'd been a Thalmor attack in the ratway - the _Thalmor _he thought with disgust, couldn't keep their pointy noses out of anything these days it seemed. Amidst the chaos, Urzul gra-Jal and the big hairy Nord… Farkas? staggered into the bar.

It was the Nord who was injured this time. Urzul caught his eye straight away and he lifted an eyebrow. She nodded and waved him over to them.

"We need your help again, mage," she said softly as he approached. "Farkas can't make the stairs into the temple. Can you heal him enough to get him there?"

Marcurio nodded.

"Should have got Vilkas to go with you," the big man muttered as Marcurio helped the Orc sit him at a bench. Keerava gave them a disapproving look, but Marcurio was hardly going to haul the poor bastard up the stairs to a room when his life might be in the balance.

"Vilkas needs to look after the companions," Urzul said harshly. "We have work."

_"You _have work," Farkas said. "Sss, _mage _can you hurry?"

There was a massive scorch mark across the front of his armour - ending in a melted section that made Marcurio wince - if the molten metal had gotten onto his skin it would be tricky and painful to get it out again and there was always the danger of blood poisoning…

He had a moment to wish he'd paid more attention in Collette's classes, even though she'd been mindnumbingly dull, before the big man tugged at his tunic.

"There's leather under the plate, mage," Farkas said, obviously understanding, and Marcurio sighed in relief. It wasn't the worst of the injuries, then. One of his arms was broken, probably from being hurled against a wall and he was limping, although that could just have been exhaustion.

"You said you were happy to come with me," the Orc's voice was flat. "But perhaps you're right and you should go back."

"He's not going anywhere but here for a while, Harbinger, I'm sorry to say," Marcurio said.

The Orc looked at him, eyes narrowing. "You can't heal him?"

"I can _heal _him, of course I can, but he's going to be weak for a few weeks at least…"

She let out a low growl and stood. "Farkas this can't wait. You know that."

"You should not go alone, Urzul."

Marcurio looked from one to the other of them.

"It's not Companion business," she said wearily.

"You are our Harbinger."

"I shouldn't be. Vilkas. Or Aela. Or you. Go back."

"If you command it."

A slight frown formed on her brow. "I do."

Marcurio let his magic fade then nodded at Urzul. "Best to take him to the temple," he said. "My specialty isn't healing - he'll get better attention there." She nodded and shifted on the bench, propping up the man under his armpit. He was only slightly taller than her, Marcurio realised. He felt like a wood elf next to them, and he was no slouch.

He did his best to help them up the stairs to the temple, where Dinya Balu was sufficiently efficient to get Farkas to a bed. Urzul busied herself with fishing in her pack, pulling out a coin purse and putting it on the dresser before pulling _another _and tossing it towards Marcurio.

"Are you really a mercenary?" she said. "Not just a healer?"

He nodded. "Absolutely," he said, opening the pouch and raising an eyebrow. "Best destruction mage this side of Whiterun."

She glanced at Farkas, who gave a short nod.

"You're hired," she said. "Get your things. We leaving for Riverwood now."

He swallowed. "Uh… it's the middle of the night…"

"I don't have the time, mage. What's your name?"

"Marcurio." He was slightly hurt that she didn't remember. But only slightly. She was very busy after all.

"Please hurry. I'll wait. Outside the inn."

He turned on his heel and made for his room. If the weight of the coinpurse in his hand was any indication, the work she did - whatever it was, paid well and he could do with getting out from under Brynjolf's eye for a while.

He packed his things, a few scrolls and potions, his dagger, some trail rations, spare clothes, then made his way outside. Urzul was standing looking down into the ratway, face inscrutable.

His experience with Orcs was negligible. Urag in the Arcaneum had the same attitude towards books he imagined most orcs had towards their weapons, and the same attitude towards students as they did towards enemies. There was an orc mercenary who occasionally got drunk in the Bee and Barb and shouted at people that they were "milk fed" and "weak", but Urzul…

He couldn't fathom her.

"So," he said. "Why are we going to Riverwood?"

"I need to speak to a Blade about a dragon," she replied, not bothering to look at him as she started walking towards the Riften gate.

He hurried after her, her long legs taking strides that made it uncomfortable for him to walk at his normal pace. A blade. A _blade. _By the nine, this woman was a walking contradiction.

"Why are you so interested in dragons? Is it because they attacked you?"

"No."

"Are we likely to be attacked by them on a regular basis?"

"Yes."

He sucked at his teeth. Ice spells. And lightning. He was good at lightning. "You're paying me to help you," he pointed out. "It might be a good idea to tell me everything."

"I…" she shook her head and slowed her pace a little. "Forgive me. Farkas was with me when this started, I forget that you don't know."

"Don't know what?"

She looked at him. "That I'm dragonborn," she said.

He laughed. "Oh ha. Very funny."

She stopped. It was dark, overcast, and impossible to tell her expression, but the tension in the air made it pretty easy to guess. Then she turned away from him, took in a deep breath, and _shouted…._

"Fus _ro _dah!"

The grass and bushes in front of them were pushed flat. His ears tried their best to force their way into his skull and his bones throbbed. As the echoes died away, and his vision cleared, Urzul started walking again. She didn't speak. He supposed she'd already said everything she needed to.

"Right," he muttered, then started after her. "Dragonborn."


	3. Trolls and Colleges

"What was the face for?" she asked in a low voice as they started the trek back to Whiterun.

"What?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "When Esbern said we needed to go to the College. You made a … " she waved a hand, puzzled, "face."

She was a sharp one, Urzul.

"I don't like the college."

"I do not know many that do."

"Yes, but I'm a wizard. So my reasons for not liking the college are different from your _average _magic-hating Nord who is afraid of being turned into a skeever."

"I did not know this was a common Nord fear."

Why did he bother?

"Look, perhaps you could make this trip by yourself? I'll stay at your lovely house in Whiterun and try to think of new ways to stop you getting killed by dragons."

"I pay you to fight with me, not lounge in my house and eat my food."

She had him there.

He rubbed his face. "They might not like seeing me, that's all. I didn't leave on the best of terms."

"You were a student there?"

"I was. For a while. I left."

"Why?"

He seriously considered shooting her with lightning. But she had proven remarkably resistant to magic over time - unusual for an orc, or maybe it was just all that blasted dragonbone she wore.

"There was an argument. Over some Dwemer artifacts. It seemed prudent."

"Will your presence stop us from getting what we need?"

He sighed. "I don't see why. We probably only need to see Urag in the Arcaneum - he knows more than the rest of them put together. I could… keep my head low…"

"I need to know if this is going to cause trouble. Farkas is better now, he can rejoin me, or I can take Lydia…"

He bristled. "Of course it won't cause trouble, what do you take me for? I'm not _stupid _the dispute was with Arniel and I'm _sure _he's not…"

"Then it's settled."

She stalked ahead of him, leaving him fuming for a few minutes before he realised he needed to catch up with her. Not that she was in any danger. In all their weeks together she'd only ever been seriously injured by dragons and usually only _shown _it once the thing was dead and she was busy sucking its soul out, or whatever it was she did to get those words she killed things with. But it would be just his luck for her to get killed the one time he didn't keep up with her.

His sense of luck was with him today. She'd turned a bend in the road to come face to face with a frost troll - bad luck that he hadn't been using detect life, bad luck that she was obviously distracted and bad luck that this frost troll was cannier than most and had managed to knock her hammer out of her hands in the first rush of attack.

He hated frost trolls.

Urzul, for her part, didn't seem too fussed to have lost her hammer. She was grabbing for the troll's claws, using her head as much as her arms to batter at it. One of the spikes on her helm (which he'd only recently worked out were dragon's _teeth _by the nine — she had _dragon teeth _on her _head)_ scraped across the troll's neck, troll blood spurting on the white snow beneath them as the helm was ripped free and he caught a glimpse of her face, lips curled in a snarl around her fangs, as she swung her weight to pull the troll between him and her.

He shot it with fire. Dangerous with Urzul so close, but fire was the best thing to fell the thing quickly. The bastards were so quick to recover from other injuries. The troll screamed and Urzul wrenched it around again, shouting that word at it, the one he could never hear properly because it made his brain bounce around in his head.

The troll was blasted away from them, and Marcurio followed up with two more fireballs, the smell of burnt fur and flesh sharp in the clean cold air.

The burnt flesh smell was too close for comfort.

Ignoring the troll he rushed to her side. Sure enough, the gap between her gauntlet and her pauldron on her left side was a charred mess of green and red. Not too serious, but enough to be causing her a lot of pain.

"My hammer," she said, nodding towards the tree.

"Can wait," he replied, shoving her down on the snow and scooping up a handful of it to press on the burn. He felt tension leak out of her as the snow took the edge off the pain, before he called forth his healing and started the process of fixing it.

"Your spell hit me," she said.

"And the troll too," he pointed out. "You're still alive. It isn't."

"Perhaps I should put more fire protection into my armour," she mused.

"You're beginning to be addicted to enchanting," he said, smiling. It was true. When he'd first met her, she'd had some rudimentary enchantments, and a large collection of soul gems that had little to no use. Although her restoration and destruction magic was dreadful, she did seem to have a knack for enchantment - he guessed it was because her weapons and armour tended to be made _by her. _On their first trip to Whiterun he'd shown her how to use the arcane enchanter in Farengar's quarters (slimy bastard, he never noticed when people used his things at the College either, although he _claimed _he could tell when someone had interfered) and unleashed a monster. She'd acquired a startlingly large array of enchanted weapons in the time before he'd met her and she seemed to take great delight in destroying them to add to her knowledge.

"Badly made," she'd said. "The enchantment is wasted on these."

She'd destroyed glass weapons worth more coin than he'd seen in his lifetime, ancient nord war axes that should probably have been in a museum and… dwemer artifacts that had made his eyelids twitch and his hands clench.

But then she'd forged him an axe and enchanted it for him and he'd never liked a weapon more. He touched it as the last bits of his magic faded and she flexed her arm, nodding at a job well done.

"If the dragons followed the _rules_ and only breathed fire I'd agree with you. But that one yesterday breathed _ice. _Hardly fair."

Her lips twitched in what he recognised as her version of a smile. It'd taken him a while to recognise some of her facial expression, because, well, _fangs, _but she had a remarkable array of them, most of them centering around her nose, which was, if one could get past the purple tattoos and the obvious scarring to one side of her face…. kind of cute and button-like.

He refused to admit that he'd just had that thought, instead getting to his feet and brushing snow off his knees.

"I hate trolls," he said.

She looked towards the corpse and nodded. "We should strip the fat from it," she said. Marcurio groaned. Alchemy was her _other _obsession. He'd had enough of prying the eyes out of dead sabre cats and finding new and interesting ways to store falmer ears… _ears _by the nine! to last him to the end of his days.

"Hate to tell you, but it's probably all been melted by my fire spell," he said. She glared at him. He shrugged. "Can't have it all, you know."

She grumbled as she got to her feet, but to his relief didn't decide to check if he was right. He hated trolls, and he hated skinning them, and he hated carting around her various squishy ingredients, even if her potions were getting better and it saved him from having to use quite so much restoration magic.

He preferred fireballs and lightning.

"I suppose it's more important to reach the college in time," she said, and his shoulders slumped.

He'd almost managed to forget where they were heading.


	4. Education

She lifted the amulet out of the chest, recognising the symbol of Mara on its front as the same symbol in the temple at Riften. Goddess of Love and Marriage, the priestess had said, when she'd returned to check on Farkas.

The Companion had gone back to Whiterun - before he was fully recovered, of course. He would always believe the beast blood made him capable of more than he truly was, and now that he didn't have it any more... He would make it back, and probably collapse, and have to be nursed back to health by the other companions. But they would praise his stupidity as bravery and she couldn't find it in her heart to begrudge him that.

"What have you got there?"

Marcurio poked his head over her shoulder, having no idea how his proximity made her hands itch towards her hammer. He truly didn't understand how tight her senses were wound - dragonborn, beastblood, beserker rage… all took their tolls and the mage was risking his very life being in the same room with her.

"Some sort of amulet," she said, tossing it to him. "Restoration enhancement, from what I can feel."

He caught it and looked at it, a small smile on his face that told her she'd missed something. He liked it when she missed things. It gave him a chance to educate her. She felt her nostrils flare involuntarily.

"It's an amulet of Mara," he said.

She nodded. "It's got her symbol on it."

He snorted. "I forget that you're not from Skyrim," he said, twirling the thing in his fingers. "You don't know what they're for, do you?"

"I suspect you're going to tell me."

"They're for marriage," he said, dangling it in front of him.

She looked at him and waited.

"If you want to get married, if you're… in the market, so to speak… you wear one of these. And then people know, and can ask you."

"Seems straightforward enough," she said, getting to her feet and dusting off her knees. She held out her hand for the amulet, and he placed it in her palm. She hefted it's weight and watched light glint off the metal, then shrugged and put it in her pack.

"How does it work with Orcs then?" Marcurio asked as he padded along next to her.

"Marriage?"

"Yes."

"You've never been to a stronghold?"

"They're not exactly welcoming of strangers."

"Can you blame them? Our homeland was wiped out... more than once. People call us pig-faced, stinking animals."

"You smell quite nice, actually, even under all that bone you wear..." She growled under her breath and he laughed. "You don't _have _to tell me…"

She stopped and rubbed her forehead, reminding herself that he _didn't _know. "In an Orc stronghold the chieftain is the only one allowed to take a spouse."

"What… in the entire stronghold?"

She nodded. "They fight for the right to be chieftain. Only the strongest are permitted to breed."

Marcurio frowned. "Seems a bit unfair."

She laughed. "You think? Most chieftains only hold their position for a few years. My father died when I was less than six summers old at the hands of my… brother." She shrugged. "If you really want to get married, you can fight for it. If you don't… well. Don't try."

"I suppose you could always hope you'll attract the attention of the chieftain," Marcurio said.

She snorted. "Yes. You could."

"All right, I've obviously said _something _wrong…"

"No."

"Urzul…"

"If you don't want the attention of the chieftain…" _or want him deciding your fate_ "you can always leave," she said.

"Is that what you did?"

She looked at him. "Yes."

"And then you got arrested."

"I left to join the Imperials and was mistaken for a Stormcloak sympathiser on my way over the border."

"Oh irony, thy name is Urzul," he grinned. She blinked. "You do know what irony is don't you?"

She sighed. "Are we done here?" she asked.

He gave her a sly smile. "Are you going to sell the amulet?"

"Probably."

"Keep it," he said. "You never know, you might want to get married someday."

_Beastblood. Beserker Rage. Dragonborn. _"Malacath," she spat. "Why do you think I would ever want to do that?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I don't know, pretty Orc like you, good prospects. You could settle down and start a smithy somewhere and have lots of psychotic hammer wielding babies…"

"Do you _want _me to crush your skull?"

He leapt nimbly out of her way and laughed. "You're not thinking about what to do once Alduin is defeated?"

She stopped. "You speak as though you think I will succeed."

He smirked again and waggled his fingers. "With me on your side there's no way you can fail," he said.

"I am constantly surprised by the level of your arrogance, Marcurio."

"Ha! I knew you'd start calling me by name eventually."

"It is a good idea to know the names of fools."

He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. "You can be very hurtful when you want to be."

"I thought that was the point."

They pushed their way out of the cave into blinding snow. Urzul let out a sigh and cast her eyes back and forth, looking for any more bandits. The Cave would be good shelter for them until the blizzard passed, but she had no desire to be attacked by any that might have been out foraging or hunting while they took care of the others.

"You should reconsider my offer," she said then.

Marcurio was leaning against the rocks at the cave entrance, picking imaginary dust off the axe she'd given him. The axe she'd _forged _for him, actually, out of the ebony they'd found in that smuggler's den. It seemed like a fair trade for his services, and he did seem to like it. She found herself eyeing his proportions in the robes he wore, wondering if she could fashion armour out of the dragon scales they'd been collecting the same way she'd managed with the bone she wore.

Dragon was excellent protection, against magic _and _blade - not that Marcurio ever let himself get within reach of a weapon, his long distance spells were so deadly that she often didn't even have to wield her hammer at all in a fight. Only when they were overwhelmed, only when she fell back on her shouts and had to swing her hammer in wide arcs, only when they were in danger did she shudder to think of nothing but cloth and his magic between a blade through his chest.

"Become a Blade?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Are you joking?… Finally?"

"No. Delphine has coin. She can pay you. And if I die…"

His lip curled. "If you die Alduin will eat the world."

She huffed and pulled off her helm. "So they say."

"You don't believe what Esbern says? What the wall of the Temple said? What _Parthanax _said?"

She shrugged. "It's hard to believe the words of a dragon you've only just met."

"He's lived since the beginning of time, cut him some slack. Ancient and all."

"Exactly."

Marcurio snorted. "What, you think he's _senile?"_

"An Orc would never let himself get to that state."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She shrugged. She had no desire to tell him how or why the only orcs in strongholds that made it to frail old age were the wise women. And there was really nothing frail about them — all thin wiry strength and bitterness.

She felt her lip curl and swallowed back the tide of memories. "We're nearly at the College," she said. "Is there anything else you needed to tell me?"

She watched the play of muscles across his jaw as he tensed up. "No. Just… As I said, I'll keep my head down."

"Should I leave you out the front?"

"Please don't. Faralda lurks around out front, stopping people from going in who aren't magically talented enough. I really don't much want to cool my heels chatting to her about my extensive list of failures."

Urzul stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Wait, you mean we can't just go inside?"

"Shout at her. I'm sure she'll let you in then."

"Marcurio…"

"What, you don't think they'd jump at the chance to have a peek at the Dragonborn? I'm sure most of them just think it's regular magic, the Thu'um. I heard Drevis talking about it with Tolfdir once…"

"Marcurio I _asked_ you if this was going to be a problem."

He huffed out a sigh. "It's not. If I have to I can…" he swallowed. "If I have to they'll let me in."

She cocked her head on one side. "You didn't want to expose yourself to them," she pointed out.

"I didn't. But stopping the world-eater has become more important than my problems, I think. Even if you don't think Parthanax has it all up here," he tapped his forehead, "I'm willing to give the old thing the benefit of the doubt. I _like _being alive."

She swallowed. "Fine. I'll shout for her. But Malacath knows any test of _magic _they decide to give me would be a complete waste of their time."

Marcurio tugged on his ponytail, looking troubled. "You're not that bad."

"Yes I am. Do not lie to me." She turned and stalked back into the cave. "Are you coming or do you want to freeze to death out there?"

He sighed and followed her.


End file.
